


take it, just don't break it

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: First Times, M/M, Relationship Discussions, aka characters guest star while john & alex fumble around like lovesick idiots, mildly sexual stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6381763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay,” he says busily, snapping the hair tie around his right wrist. He’s starting to gather John’s hair into his hands when John yawns and says, “Be gentle, okay,” like it’s no big deal at all and Alexander goes off thinking <i>unfair unfair unfair.</i></p><p>-</p><p>Or, five times Alexander hears John say <i>be gentle</i> and one time he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take it, just don't break it

**Author's Note:**

> 1) lyrics from sarah geronimo's _please be careful with my heart_ !!  
>  2) i said to myself, wow!!!! i should probably start writing school homework things instead of Gay Shit. 2 hours later i had this mess  
> 3) pls let me know if you spot any mistakes here (weeps)  
> 4) john & alex would totally share hair ties and none of you can convince me otherwise. maybe there's a communal hair tie jar between them and laf. idk man. just hair tie sharing

i.

“Be _gentle_!” are the first words Alexander hears when he opens the door to his new room.

Given that he has absolutely no context nor any clue of his new roommate’s, ah, _character_ , the natural reaction would have been to turn tail and invoke blissful ignorance. Unfortunately, given that he has also swung open the door very widely and already taken a step inside, he realizes that it would be hard to do so.

“Um,” he says. He keeps his eyes glued firmly on his orientation folder, where it clearly states his room number and roommate’s name. _Hercules Mulligan_ , it says. He repeats it over and over in case he loses the paper and has to file a request for a room change.

“Ow, god _damn_ —“

He looks up. His eyeballs are _not_ singed.

The room is standardly threadbare with a dresser, night table, and two beds. On one of them, two boys are sitting front-to-back, one tugging at the other’s hair.

“Should I come back?” Alexander says uncomfortably. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something, I’d totally understand—“

The two boys freeze.

Alexander hedges just a tiniest bit further into the room. Okay, their clothes _are_ on, so he hasn’t interrupted anything too heated.

“Sorry,” one of the boys says. He’s the smaller of the two, the one whose hair is…currently being pulled on? His head’s a mess of curls, pulled back into a ponytail— Ah. “Are you—“ A wince. “Alexander?”

Alexander says a “yes” that comes out sounding more like a question than an answer.

“Great!” The boy smiles toothily. His cheeks are smattered with freckles, Alexander notes appraisingly. He’s _cute_. If he’s his roommate, Alexander knows he’s fucked. 

The boy sitting behind him grunts.

“Listen. Herc’s usually a good roommate and I don’t usually intrude during move-in days — on my honor! — but we’ve been trying to figure out how to get this ponytail out of my hair without taking the rest of my head with it.”

“I think I got it,” the boy, Herc, says. “Gonna pull it out in one go, yeah?”

Alexander feels like he should _look away_ or something.

“Yeah,” Freckles says, closing his eyes. “Okay, ready, ready.”

“Ready,” Herc repeats, then pulls.

Alexander can’t decide if he’s smitten before _or_ after Freckles yelps _“ohholyfuckinshit”_ and falls forward on his face, apparently now free from the ponytail.

The boy behind him grins triumphantly, holding said ponytail and some wiry strands of hair in his hand. Alexander winces, reaching back to feel his own tiedback hair consciously.

“John,” Herc says, laughing. “I don’t need your fuckin’ lion’s mane of a head to figure out that rubber bands and hair are _horrible_ together.”

“Shut up, Hercules,” Freckles — John — is mumbling into the bed. “I think I’m bleeding.”

“Right, now that that’s done.” Hercules deposits the rubber band primly on John’s back and stands to finally address Alexander. Ignoring the, “I’m _dying_ ,” that rises from John’s still-curled-up form, he says, “Hey. I’m Hercules Mulligan, and that’s John Laurens. Sorry that was your first impression.”

“So am I,” John groans behind them.

“Nah, I understand the pain.” Alexander offers him a grin, gesturing to his own hair. “I can say that I learned the rubber band lesson early on, though.”

Hercules cackles, pushing at John’s side. “It’s never too late to learn.”

That’s when John Laurens finally pushes himself up to a kneeling position, his newly-freed curls settling around his freckled face. “I have learned,” is his grim announcement. He pouts ridiculously, and if Alexander wasn’t already far gone _before_ , he is then.

 

 

 

 

ii.

When John announces that he plans to down five pints before the end of the night, Alexander doubts him — and rightly so. As the night’s designated Helper, Alexander pushes away John’s _third_ and says, “Think you’ve had enough? No, wait, I’m not actually expecting you to answer that.”

“Well,” John says huffily, face flushed and eyes bright, “tha’s ‘cause you didn’t give me _time_ to think’uv an answer.”

“Mulligan’s going to kill you,” Alexander informs him cheerily. “Right, up and at ‘em.”

“At who?” John mumbles as he slides off the stool pitifully.

Alexander catches him, of course, he’s a great friend like that. It’s nice, knowing that John would do a trust fall with him only two months into this friendship—even if John probably won’t remember this in the morning.

Alexander walks them out of the party, leaving music and flashing lights in favor of the somber atmosphere of the streets. When he sees just how smashed John looks, he says, “Okay, buddy, I’m going to call someone to help you g—“

“No,” John protests noisily. “ ‘m… I’m fine. S’only a couple blocks.”

Two blocks, to be exact. They’ve walked longer while drunk before. It’s just that Alexander doesn’t trust himself not to wax poetic about John’s face when he knows that John won’t remember a word of it tomorrow. He bites his lip thoughtfully.

“Tell me whenever you’re ready to move,” he says, finally.

“Swell,” John says. He’s leaning heavily on Alexander’s shoulder, practically hanging off of him. His freckles are _so pronounced in the moonlight, do you know that?_ Alexander wants to say, but he does have some self-restraint so he doesn’t. “Think ‘m ready.”

Alexander takes a step forward, and it turns out to be too big of a step because then John is swaying after him, groaning, “Be _gentle,_ Alex,” and Alexander’s heart really is trying to claw out of his ribcage.

“Sorry,” he’s vaguely aware of muttering, “yeah, sorry, sorry, we’ll go slow, that was my fault.” 

If Mulligan asks why they took half an hour to walk the two blocks to his and John’s room, Alexander will make something up about how John kept pausing to throw up. Or something. John won’t be conscious to deny or lie with him — he’s a bad liar anyway. (Mulligan will stare at him, kind of thoughtful. And he’ll accept the obvious lie, for reasons that Alexander has no time to ponder.)

 

 

 

 

iii.

“Remember when we first met and you were dying,” Alexander says as he bursts into John’s dorm.

He doesn’t miss the cringe that flickers over Aaron Burr’s face from where he’s sitting at his desk. Sometimes he forgets that John’s roommate _isn’t_ Mulligan or Lafayette and therefore not as used to liberal visits from people who aren't his roommates. Well. Aaron Burr will just have to deal with it.

John’s sprawled on his bed in a barely contained mess of papers, pencils, and candy. His hair’s down, which is perfect. “I try not to,” he says, popping a lollipop out of his mouth. Oh, that’s not _fair_.

“I realize that it has been a grievous error that I, your established closest friend, have taken this long to get you real ponytails.”

John rolls his eyes. Brat. “I wear a rubber band one time, and I’m branded a fashion offender for the rest of my life.” He makes sure to emphasize, “I _do_ have proper hair ties, Alexander.”

“Yeah, but I’ve felt them, they’re rubbery and sticky, and that’s how hair gets yanked out, my dear Laurens.”

This is the point where Aaron Burr noisily closes his laptop, gathers it into his arms, and stands. “Alexander,” he says politely as he walks by.

“Aaron Burr, sir,” Alexander says cheerily of his exit.

When they’re finally alone, Alexander throws himself on the bed and lands half on top of John in a noisy scramble of _ow watch your elbow man_ and _scoot over then_ and _if I stab myself with a pencil you’re buying me bandaids._ “As I was _saying_ ,” Alexander says, comfortably situated over John’s thighs, “it physically pains me to watch you tie your hair. Like, I _feel_ my scalp burn when I watch you take your hair down.”

“You watch me take my hair down,” John says absently, scribbling something into his notes.

“So,” Alexander continues, brandishing his wrist, “when I found an extra hair tie, I saved it for you.”

He waits.

“This is the part where you roll over, inundate me with thanks, and try it on.”

“One,” John says in that voice he uses when he feels snotty, “you’re _sitting on me_ , and two, this paper’s due in two hours and you’re not helping.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great no matter what.”

“I will take that compliment as reimbursement for you crushing me,” says John. “Put it on for me?” It sounds so natural, that request.

Alexander mulls it over for a few seconds. “Put what on you?”

“The hair tie. My hands are both preoccupied, as you can see.”

_Liar_ , he’s only using his left hand to prop up his chin, but Alexander decides to indulge him anyway because apparently he’s weak-willed around objects of his affection.

“Okay,” he says busily, snapping the hair tie around his right wrist. He’s starting to gather John’s hair into his hands when John yawns and says, “Be gentle, okay,” like it’s no big deal at all and Alexander goes off thinking _unfair unfair unfair_.

But he manages. He manages! John’s hair is ridiculously soft, though Alexander has always theorized that there are secretly tons of knots underneath, but he can run his fingers through it smoothly. Underneath him, John sighs a soft little sigh and Alexander regrets all of his life choices immediately.

He tucks John’s hair into a neat ponytail as fast as he can — the tie loops around twice before it’s too tight to loop around again. “There,” he says, and he’s scrambling off John before John makes some other ungodly noise.

John hums appraisingly, and Alexander _must_ be imagining the pinks in his cheeks.“Thank you, Alexander. It feels absolutely different from all of my other hair ties. I’m about to go out and buy a fifty pack of these.”

“You won’t feel the difference until you’re taking it out,” Alexander says intelligently.

“That sounds mildly suggestive.”

Alexander sputters; John snickers into his notes. 

“I do something thoughtful, and I get _harangued_ ,” Alexander moans. “I’m leaving, permanently. Permanently leaving.” 

He proceeds to stay to walk John to class.

 

 

 

 

iv.

“Whose idea was this?” John asks as he examines the ingredients displayed on the counter. He’s never seen so many cartons of eggs in his life.

“Mine, of course,” Alexander is quick to say, tugging the apron over his head. “How much time do we have again?”

“An hour and a half, but we should be fine if we start decorating while the brownies bake.”

“We’ll make it work.” Alexander is confident that they can handle _pastries_. “I’m pulling up the recipe right now. Can you—“

John hums in assent, already tying the back of Alexander’s apron firmly. “Yes, honey,” he says, voice syrupy, and Alexander thinks that the whole world hears his eyes rolling.

“Pass me the eggs, _sweetheart_ ,” he snips back, then yelps when John pretends to throw an egg at him. “Be _careful_ , Christ—“

“ _Please be careful with my heart_ ,” John sings absolutely out of nowhere. He smiles, dimples poking out, and does an endearing little dance around the counter before handing Alexander three eggs. “ _I love you, and you know I do_.” 

Yes, Alexander lets him, even sings along at the few parts he knows because John lights up when he does.

Of course, it all goes wrong within fifteen minutes. “Whose sick, sick idea was this?” Lafayette asks when they come back to their apartment to find them in the kitchen, one of two places they’ve been banned from inhabiting unsupervised. (The other is the laundry room, after an incident with detergent. Alexander tries to forget that.)

“Herc’s teaching Alex how to bake,” John explains, holding his hands up. They’re covered in flour. 

Alexander considers buying him an apron in case this happens again in the future.  He would help him talk their way out of this one, but whisking takes a surprising amount of focus.

“Alex, you’ve got to calm down with that,” John chides.

Alexander, out of spite, mashes the brownie mix a little more unkindly.

“And where is Hercules now?” Lafayette demands.

“He, uh, stepped out to get more eggs,” John says.

“Uh huh,” Lafayette says, unwavering.

John sighs. “Okay, okay, we heard you were visiting France for your birthday, so we wanted to throw a surprise party before you left so we could celebrate with you too—“

“By making food in my own apartment?”

John looks guilty. “Herc said it was okay, we were gonna set up everything here anyway. And he sent us clear instructions, which, as you can tell by the lack of a fire, we’ve followed very dutifully.”

Alexander finally looks up, as if registering Lafayette’s appearance properly for the first time. “You weren’t supposed to be back this early.”

The sound of the door opening saves him from having to provide further explanation. “Are you two still alive?” Hercules’s voice is a welcome sound.

“In the kitchen!” John calls.

Hercules appears, and his expression falls flat in record time. “Really,” he says to Alexander and John, like it’s _their_ fault somehow that the surprise is ruined.

“We didn’t tell!” Alexander protests. “Laf came home by themselves!”

“Can you just, like, go outside for an hour, come back, and pretend to be surprised?” John says without shame. “We spent a lot of time planning this.”

“Apparently not long enough,” Lafayette comments. “Are you putting extra chocolate chips in those?”

“How else would we make them?”

“Fair. I’ll go. Mulligan?”

Mulligan leaves with Lafayette after sending them A Meaningful Look.

Alexander goes back to whisking. “We haven’t put the chocolate chips in yet, have we?”

John pokes the sixteen-ounce packet of it in response. “Nope.” He pauses. “Want to dump them all on the right side of the pan and give Laf all the slices on the left?”

Alexander clutches at his heart, really wishing his apron said _Kiss the cook_ or something ridiculous so that he could do something equally asridiculous, such as asking if he can kiss John or simply kissing John. Spontaneity is healthy, right? “A man after my heart.”

When John grins at him, it’s like the very _sun_ is in the room, and Alexander has to whisk a little harder to stop himself from really kissing him.

“ _I’ll be gentle with your heart_ ,” this personification of sunlight sings to him, “ _I’ll caress it like the morning dew.”_

To Alexander’s chagrin, he’s succumbed to the singing by the time the chorus comes around. He usually doesn’t sing — hates doing it in front of others, even when he’s been told his voice is okay. When John bumps their hips together lightly, still beaming, Alexander decides that he has no qualms about singing in front of John Laurens.

 

 

 

v.

“Oh, please be _gentle_ ,” John sighs dramatically on their first night together, a little drunk off affection and a little more than giddy as they tumble into bed, a mess of limbs. Alex swats him playfully for that, then peppers his cheeks with kisses in apology. He’s not sure how they got here, but his heartbeat’s a drum in his ears and he’s willing to let it take course as long as John lets it.

John’s giggly, the way he gets when he’s tipsy, but Alexander knows very well that they both know what they want. Still, that doesn’t stop him from asking smugly, “What do you want, hm?”

“The one who’s on top of me,” John quips. “Tell him to stop talking so much.”

“You weren’t complaining when I was singing you praises,” Alexander reminds him, because he can. He lowers himself so he can reach John’s neck, and he has freckles there too, _it’s not fair_. Alexander resolves to kiss every last one of them—

“Actually, I _was_ ,” John says. Right, he _had_ been covering his face in embarrassment and telling Alexander to “stuff it.” Alexander digresses with a nudge of his knee between John’s legs, and, ah, he can make an educated guess as to what John wants.

“No one’s around now,” he sing-songs into John’s collarbone. 

He gets a muffled sound in response, which he doesn’t understand until he looks up and sees John’s hands pressed over his face.

“John?” Alexander asks, immediately worried.

“I’m fine,” John’s mumbling.

“Sweetheart, I can barely understand you.” Alexander brings his hands over John’s, swiping his thumbs over the backs of his hands. “Look at me, please? Did I do something?”

“Everything,” John groans, letting Alexander coax his hands from his face. He’s beet red, eyes squeezed shut, freckles more prominent than ever, _oh_. 

“Can you be a bit more specific?” Alexander’s not sure if he should move off of him, stop touching him, or— No, he tries to move, but John catches him by the knee.

“Nothing wrong,” John says. He opens his eyes slowly, one after the other, peering abashedly up at Alex. “Just. I’m not saying that we have to do anything tonight, but, um— I want to tell you. I haven’t— You. You’d be my first?”

Alexander is dimly aware of his vision tunneling, everything in his periphery blurring until all he can see clearly is John’s face, John’s beautiful, beautiful face, sheepish but open and trusting. His mind races, instantly snatching at the implications of this new information—first what? First time in general? First time, in the history of _ever_? First time with a boy? Or maybe first time, like Alexander, feeling so head-over-heels, in-too-deep—

“I’d understand if you didn’t want—“

“No,” Alexander says quickly, grounding himself back to reality in time to cut John off. “Don’t finish that sentence, or so help me, John Laurens.” He gives John the best threatening glare he can muster, which John cracks the slightest of grins at. “Thank you—for telling me. For trusting me with this. We’re not doing anything you’re not comfortable with, okay?”

He finds John’s hand and squeezes it, tries to convey it all through the link of their fingers.

“It absolutely does nothing to change the fact that I want you,” he finishes. “Understand?”

John’s eyes flicker away. “I— I don’t want it to be just tonight, though? If that’s what you’re looking for. I don’t— I’m not looking for a one night thing.”

For as much as Alexander boasts about his quick-thinking, it takes an absurdly long time for him to comprehend this statement.

_You want to be with me?_ he thinks. What comes out from his frazzled thoughts is, “With me, you want to be?”

“Yes,” John says, seems to think about something, and adds, “Yoda.”

Alexander laughs before he can help himself, because— “Oh my god,” he wheezes, bowling over on top of John, “Yoda, oh my _god_ , you absolute mood killer—“

“You set yourself up for that one!” John defends hotly, but he’s laughing too, and they dissolve into a shaking mess on top of each other until Alexander finally decides to collapse on the spot next to him. 

“You’re a geek,” John tells him. “And yes, I want to be with you.”

“Like, _with_ me,” Alexander croons lovingly. “You wanna _daaate_ me. You wanna _hold my hand_.”

“I do, I do.” John pushes his hands at Alexander’s face, which Alexander meets gleefully with his own. “Been wanting to for a long time now, actually, but let’s not talk about it because it’s embarrassing.”

“No way. Since when?”

John contemplates for a few seconds. “Since the night you walked my drunk ass home and recited poetry about how nice my freckles looked.”

“That’s okay, I think I wanted to ever since I walked in on you and your damn rubber band. Is that a cheesy thing to say? You— Wait, you— Oh god,” Alexander moans, “you _remember_ that night?”

“You rhymed _freckles_ with _devil_ ,” John says unhelpfully.

“Stop. _Stop._ ”

“I think the most impressive part about it, in retrospect, is that it sounded like you just made it up on the spot—“

Alexander dives for his sides because he knows John is ticklish and it’s the only way to save his dignity.

“Mercy, mercy, mercy,” John squawks out after a mere fifteen seconds of Alexander pinching at his sides. “I promise I won’t bring up your poetic endeavors again—“

“Swear.”

“Cross my heart.”

“Thank you.” Alexander drops a kiss on his nose, laughing when John goes cross-eyed trying to watch him. “Seriously, though,” he says, as seriously as he can when he’s half on top of John again, hands still up his shirt and resting comfortably on his hips. “We don’t have to do anything tonight. We go at your speed, _comprende_? Could even just cuddle.” He flattens himself against John’s body as if to prove it. “Cuddling’s nice.”

“Cuddling’s nice,” John agrees, tipping them over so they’re laying side by side, facing each other. Alexander grins happily at him, even though _happy_ is the biggest understatement— “All that before was nice too, though,” John says, and oh, okay, he can do this.

“Is that so?” Alexander says, quirking an eyebrow. “Which part?”

“This, for starters,” John answers, and he’s pushing forward to kiss Alexander with those soft, soft lips. 

Alexander pulls back when he feels John’s hands furtively seeking along the edge of his shirt. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely,” John says, pecking him on the corner of his lips. “Just.” Alexander feels him smile. “Be gentle?”

It sounds half joking, but Alexander understands the other half. “Always,” he says, and he kisses him in promise.

 

 

 

 

+i.

Alexander wakes up first, and John Laurens is a sight that makes him want to wake up first for the rest of their lives.

He rests his chin on John's bare shoulder, simply seeing and absorbing,  _we're together now, he likes me, likes me back, don't you dare mess this up, Hamilton._ Slowly, he splays his fingers over John’s bare chest, taking great care not to wake him, and feels. The room is beginning to lighten with the sun’s arrival, its rays racing across the hills of the sheets, and he is smiling.

_This_ , he thinks to John’s beating heart, _I’ll be gentle with, too._


End file.
